The lounge in Buswells Hotel, Dublin 2 this morning as Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed, via video link, a joint session of the Houses of the Oireachtas
Kevin L Higgins writes:
Irish children of the early 1960s whose homes contained a (generally rented) television were treated each weekday from just after 5pm, to a stream of cheaply made, cheaply acquired and universally awful series of outdated American TV shows.
Between Monday and Friday at least three of these slots were occupied by such as Rin Tin Tin, Annie Oakley and of course, The Cisco Kid . Had these productions been labelled like LEGO kits, they would have been described as suitable for 5+. This form of entertainment even then, had barely moved on from an era of film where, in a bar-room fight all the ‘good guys’ wore white hats and all the ‘bad guys’ black ones.
While the Irish population of 2022 has moved on somewhat over 60 years, certainly in its willingness to pronounce on world events, there remains some doubt as to whether we are better informed; perverse in our determination to propound a contrary view or simply remain infatuated with the sound of our own voices. The majority of our political class are certainly a fit for the two latter options.
In the space of a couple of years. a huge chunk of the chattering classes and indeed that of the population as a whole have become experts on the nature and effect of transmittable viruses and in a blink, informed commentators on the politics of Central and Eastern Europe and the logistics of modern warfare. Not since the introduction of the revolutionary arcade game of Space Invaders more than forty years ago have we been able to exhibit our quick-wits and dexterity to such effect.
If were are forced to paint by numbers it can be said that Putin is a vile creature who rules Russia and its satellites with a grip which no one has had, since the death of Stalin in 1953. Though he is acutely aware of his own mortality as he approaches his 70th birthday this is no consolation, as he is transparently unhinged and clinically paranoid.
He is a captive in a prison of his own construction. As on so many occasions in the past, it may fall to the Praetorian Guard to solve the current problem. Those with any knowledge of the Roman Empire will be aware that the Guard could always be bought. There are undoubtedly offers already on the table, the Devil is clearly in the detail.
If we await the sound of trumpets from the Seventh Cavalry bringing relief to Europe, we should recall that at the last changing of the guard in Washington, a deranged lunatic without any apparent redeeming features attempted to overthrow a duly-elected President by violence and continues on a daily basis to preach sedition.
Putin is a present and dangerous poison in the world, but any suggestion that the United States is on balance, a force for good in the world is absurd. However deluded Putin is about a new Russian Empire, the creation and extension of the American hegemony has been inexorable for at least eighty years; that is where US interest lies.
Those interested in how Putin became the new Red Czar and how Russia evolved after the collapse of the Soviet Union, should read David Satter’s “Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State”, published in 2003. Satter’s professional career in Moscow began as correspondent for the Financial Times in 1976. He filled various posts in the Russian Capital until Putin finally had him expelled in 2013. His books are essential reading for a proper understanding of the Russian State over the last forty years.
The Irish response to the displacement of Ukrainian people has been generous and understandable. The virtual canonisation of Zelensky has been a useful focus and rallying mark for those who still recognise the good guys by their (at least notional) white hats.
When it comes to the tortured history of Central Europe however, nothing is simple. For a century Ukraine has been pulverised both by Nazis who actually called themselves Nazis and by the savagery of Stalinism and it’s successors.
The richness of its ‘black earth’, it’s scale and the fact that it was soaked in blood during the major conflict of the twentieth century makes it the true Mitteleuropa irrespective of how that term was intended by nineteenth century writers. The term was certainly not benign as interpreted by the Nazis who saw it as indispensable in the acquisition of Lebensraum just as Moscow has always viewed it as part of the Russian Empire. Ukraine, since the collapse of the Soviet Union and expansion of the EU and NATO. is now more than ever the buffer state of Europe.
If Ireland is going to embrace Ukraine on the scale envisaged, then it would be a good idea if we were to inform ourselves as to it’s history. Given how poorly we grapple with our own history of the last hundred years, that may be a bit of an ask. The response of the Ukrainian people to violent attack is understandable, as it has been like Poland, the ground over which contending empires have carried out unspeakable atrocities.
When Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa on June 21,1941, he quickly swept through Ukraine. A large part of the Ukrainian population welcomed the Germans as their ‘enemy’s enemy’. By September 1941, the German army was fully in control of Kiev or as we now daily refer to it as Kyiv.
Outside the city is a place called Babi Yar, the site of a large ravine. There, over two days, the September 29 and 30, some 33,771 Jews; men, women and children were murdered by the Einsatzgruppen (the murder squads that followed with the regular army) and by members of the Ukrainian State Police, then allied with their enemy’s enemy.
How do we know that? Because with the efficiency for which our Teutonic friends are celebrated they counted very carefully and transmitted the information to Berlin. The details were picked up on Enigma radio traffic, decoded at Bletchley and confirmed by post-war sources.
Any Ukraine for Dummies booklet being used by those within the Department of Foreign Affairs will not be helpful in assisting in the present horror story. Neither will several hundred pairs of bespoke yellow and blue socks. We should read a little, listen a little, learn a little.
The present writer does not claim any particular expertise, but I have been to Moscow, Lviv, Kyiv and visited Babi Yar. I have read the entirety of the Transcript of the Nuremburg Military Tribunal, and completed (a long time ago at undergraduate level) a course of Soviet Studies.
I have read voraciously the history of Europe for some 40 years. If I am none the wiser, I am perhaps a little better informed than I might otherwise be. If we are to be confronted by daily butchery on European soil (while blithely ignoring it elsewhere) and perhaps even Armageddon: perhaps we should be a little curious as to why? Simultaneously, mountains must be moved to bring this latest tranche of war criminals to the Hague.
Our politicians have to have a capacity to understand what their job is on entering Iveagh House [Department of Foireign Affairs], as should the collection of Third Secretaries whose academic output included essays on the Congress of Vienna and a critical assessment of Bismarck based on a student crib. They too may need to widen their reading.
Now retired from law, Tuam activist Kevin L Higgins has contributed to Broadsheet previously on the issue of Mother and Baby Homes.
Earlier: “I Would Like You To Show More leadership”
If we are to be confronted by daily butchery on European soil (while blithely ignoring it elsewhere) and perhaps even Armageddon: perhaps we should be a little curious as to why?
From the school of victim blaming. Ah she must have done something to provoke him. Sometimes you don’t actually need to understand the background.
+ 1 Fupp Russian imperialism
Please print more articles like this.
I am getting really fed up of the same brainwashed billy goats flooding the comments sections here daily
+1!
It’s not intended to be all encompassing and is a great piece of suitable length for a blog like Broadsheet.
( On that note, I ask that you Mr Higgins, do ignore the peacocking in the comments at anything deemed to be an omission. )
Yea
+1
Why invoke Babi Yar? Ukrainians took part in the atrocity and therefore…they deserve what’s happening today, somehow?
At least we can agree on this: ”Putin is a vile creature who rules Russia and its satellites with a grip which no one has had, since the death of Stalin in 1953.”
Speaking of history, shouldn’t mention of Nazi massacres in Ukraine be accompanied by mention of the NKVD massacres committed before Russian withdrawal and after Russian reoccupation? If you’re truly trying to get across the complexity of the historical context.
After World War Two many soviet troops that took part of the invasion of nazi Germany and had contact with other allies were deemed too westernised
They were actually sent to work camps in Siberia
A favourite song of mine was penned by the water boys on pagan place called red army blues
Listen to it
We all know how ruthless the soviets were so why poke Putin
It did not help when the USA dropped two atom bombs on Japan sending a message to the soviets
Some say it did not help avoiding the Cold War
Many Jews fraught for the Soviet Union and the soviets were the first to enter many of the death camps
Watch a good film made by a polish director called voylhnia or hatred in English fascinating sight into Ukrainian Nazis
I am no commie but one must understand history to understand the mentality of the people
There is no saints here and lest we forget the crimes by NATO countries in invasions and the brutality of their wars
The west call their bombing of civilian targets collateral damage and boy before the truth comes out we get the bull shit of cover ups
One word for crimes against POWs guantamino bay another ones could be the jails in Kabul then let’s talk about rendition flights
Strange essay. No conclusion that simple old me can see other than I should beware of the low level of learning – a little of which is a dangerous thing – attained by the average civil servant.
People commenting on the ongoing situation in Ukraine sometimes look back to WW II, more rarely to the early days of the CCCP.
It is as though history in that part of the world started after the Russian revolution (which I acknowledge as a major, major event in Russian, European and even World history).
However, if we were to go back a century and a half further, we would find out that southern and eastern Ukraine were then a different country – the Crimean Khanate, and had been for centuries. It was then conquered by the expanding Russian empire which was gradually eating up everything around it; including the remaining part of Ukraine which had previously belonged to Poland-Lithuania, and various parts of the Turkish Empire, south towards the Caucasus.
Then in the mid-19th century they expelled/murdered most of the inhabitants of the Crimean Khanate as well as other areas that had been Turkish-ruled. The Circassians became a famous case, as they were “fair-haired and white-skinned” – their only crime being that they were Muslim.
To put this somewhat in context, in the USA they were doing much the same with the Indians; from the Trail of Tears to Wounded Knee. The English were no slouches either – the millions of Irish who died in the famine or were driven out of the country are testimony to this, along with the thousands of Scottish who were forced to emigrate in the Highland Clearances. The Tasmans and other native Australians, Canadians and Maori who were killed, died or displaced are further examples of the same policies. The population of the Congo similarly.
So who should S and E Ukraine belong to today? What real right does Ukraine have to this territory which, let us remember, was conquered by Russia and then administratively attached to Ukraine. And indeed in the same context, what right does Russia have to the territory?
Questions like these are not usually put, and even more rarely answered, because if looked at honestly they open up major questions regarding the other states that resulted from European expansion from 1492 onwards.
Very well put and accurate
Would vlad be in power in Russia decades since he was identified by yeltsin… were it not for the subscribed adventures of nato as a counter movement to Russian ‘security’… the arrangement of Merkel within european energy and industry … and the more general and widespread arrogance of wealth that has seen massive increase to proportional holdings and made money from every state backed implementation and who make money like it’s the meaning to life … he was is and has only ever been a puppet … his arrogance requires brutal regime and political suppression with a side of superficial religious persuasion in order for him to keep his big table surrounded by the right sort of charms…. fupp putin doesn’t mean go team USA.. the main point I took from this essay was the one most often neglected concerning the requirement of bad guys and good guys to play out psychologically applied roles which address long standing corruptions of moral integrity within the anglosphere and its variously influenced supporters … without saying as much
The thing that amazes me is we all knew what a bastard Putin was but the west were in like flint investing in Russia and putting our dependency on them for fuel then what about allowing these oligarchy’s to launder their money through our financial centres